Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Lottie Mead is an alcoholic mother who demands that custody of her daughter be returned to her. She has not seen her daughter in years. When her daughter's guardians Ralph and Jane Birdwell refuse to cooperate, she demands money in order to leave them alone. The Birdwells do not give her the money so she plots with a detective named Ames to kidnap the girl for ransom. Ames takes Lottie to a schoolyeard a points out her daughter. Later, Lottie kidnaps the girl. Unfortunately, she kidnaps the wrong girl. Faced with a real kidnapping charge, Ames agrees to help her if she returns the girl unharmed and if she promises to stop annoying the Birdwells. Ames is, in fact, a friend of the couple and the kidnapped girl is really his own daughter.